Mother's Day

Sunday was my very first Mother's Day! It's funny how the holiday takes on a whole new meaning when you're actually a mom. We were lucky enough to be able to celebrate the day with both of our families. Tyler's family came in town on Saturday and stayed overnight. It was so fun to see them interacting with their grandson! Caleb has changed so much since they last saw him when he was a week old. We were especially grateful for Caleb's wonderful grandma Sue who allowed us to sleep all night while she took all of the feedings, diaper changes, etc.!

Mother's Day morning was especially memorable because Caleb had his infant dedication at church. In our church, we don't have baptisms for babies because they pretty much have no idea what the significance of a baptism is. Instead, a simple baby dedication is done where the parents pledge to raise their child to know about and love Jesus and the pastor prays for the child. It was wonderful to have our entire family there to share in the special moment. We can't wait for the day when we can all come together again to celebrate Caleb's baptism. Hopefully he will come to know and understand the concept of salvation and commit himself to living a Christian life very early on...and then make the choice to be baptized. For now, we just contine to pray for our little guy and anticipate the day when he puts Jesus first in his life!

Well, there isn't much else to update everyone on. We've been having so much fun watching our little darling grow one day at a time. He has SO much personality and loves to smile and coo. We've also been busy homeowners over the past few weeks. Tyler has torn out just about every piece of the old landscaping and we are anxiously awaiting the day when our new landscaping is done. In addition to landscaping, we'll be putting in a fence in a few weeks. We can't wait to be able to just open the door and let Chesney run free in the yard. We also had a not so happy moment when we decided to peel away and repaint our bay window in the front of our house. We never finished the project because we realized the window is completely rotted and now need to spend quite a bit to replace it...yuck! We're hoping we don't have any unpleasant surprises as we begin to tackle the next outdoor project: the pool. We're hoping it's in good shape so that we can spend plenty of time hanging out in it during the upcoming summer months. Speaking of which, summer break will be here shortly...but not until I head back to work for the final two weeks of the year. I have very mixed emotions about the whole back-to-work process. Although I miss my students like crazy, I'm going to be very sad to leave Caleb. He'll be in good hands though with his grandma! For now, I'm just enjoying the last few days I have as a true stay-at-home mom: a job that is quite possibly harder than any job I've ever had!

Okay, so I can't post this without putting some more pictures of the little cutie...ENJOY!

Caleb's visit to Grand Prairie:

All bundled up after a walk:

Hanging out with Chesney:
Spending some quality time with grandpa Ron:

Rainbows

On Friday night, we had a big rainstorm that seemed to come out of nowhere and was gone in less than an hour. We were left with patches of dark clouds mixed in with rays of sunshine. Needless to say, we knew there had to be a rainbow somewhere! As we looked out from our back porch we saw the most beautiful rainbow I have ever seen. It made a complete semi-circle and the colors were incredibly vivid. There were actually two rainbows side by side as you can tell from the pictures.



We immediately grabbed the camera to document Caleb's first rainbow (which he slept through). We figured someday we'll be able to tell him all about how awesome the first rainbow of his lifetime looked and show him proof in pictures. At the same time we'll be sure to explain to him what a rainbow means...something we were pleasantly reminded of on Friday night: God will always hold true to his promises. It was even more meaningful to be reminded of that exactly six weeks after Caleb was born. There were many moments during those first tough six weeks when the only thing I had left was to rely on my faith in God. I kept reading and hearing about how the first six weeks would be the hardest...and they certainly were not easy! Thankfully we have an awesome God who somehow makes everything work out just like it should. He blessed me with a wonderful husband and family who gave more than enough help and support. And at the moments when I thought I just couldn't go with another sleepness night or deal with one more minute of a fussy baby, God gave me that extra boost of energy and patience!



So, here we are six weeks later and we have so much to look forward to. Praise God for getting us to this point and providing a little reminder on Friday night that He is here, He's always here, and He's never going to let us down!



On that note, we'd really appreciate your prayers as we are dealing with Caleb's first fever/cold/cough. He woke up Saturday night feeling really icky and has been slowly getting worse over the past two days. His fever has gotten a little higher and he's just not a happy and comfortable baby right now. We're hoping it is just a cold and he'll fight through it without anything major happening. So for now, keep him (and his tired parents) in your prayers!